rylan

So what is the point of Delta 'delaying' a flight by 17hrs instead of canceling it and reinstating for the following morning? Does it help them with some bogus stat?

Was supposed to be on 5279 RIC-BOS this evening, was delayed by an hour and then had the infamous string of ongoing delays by 10min... all due to supposed weather delays in BOS. Then after posting a 4hr delay it got to the point the crew was going to time out, so they delayed it 5hrs until 10:20 so they could use crew coming in from DTW...

Then they 'delayed' the flight... ie canceled, until 10am Mon. Is it so they can avoid having to rebook people? I still had to call and get rebooked on the 6:30 flight. And of course since they claimed faa/weather, they give nothing even though it was crew scheduling issues and the usual DL Connection getting dumped on when there are any delays.

flyerCO

One that sounds exactly like a weather delay. If crew or plane is delayed by weather, then it's weather. Also if ATC orders reductions, then its ATC.

AFAIK after x time the DOT stats view it the same. Regardless, if they cancel it, then next mornings flight on the equipment gets cancelled. The crew end up out of place and their next flight is also cancelled or delayed.

As for rebooking. Once even a minor delay is posted DL will let you rebook. Not sure what the rant on this was about. DL App or dl.com provide easy self service rebooking. Can delay a day and/or pick another airport to depart from or arrive into. Simply click and its done.

BostonPlanesAndTrains

BOS-RIC is always delayed, it's crazy.

DTWflyer

They likely need to get the aircraft and crew into position for the next day's flyining.

Also in the case of DCI carriers, they don't get paid unless they fly the flights. Under the fee per departure agreements / capacity-purchase agreement they need to operate the flight to get paid by DL.

indufan

Were the other two flights today Delta Connection operated the first two that ever arrived early?

MSPeconomist

DL generally seems proud of its flight completion stats.

minnyfly

You touched on a couple reasons. DL wants to have days where they don't cancel any flights (marketing purposes for one), so they pull a trick by delaying flights for ridiculously long times. The DOT treats a long delay the same as a short one, so it's much better to hide what really was a cancelled flight.

And second, I'd imagine it retains more revenue. It reduces leverage for passengers to completely bail or be rebooked on alternate carriers.

It's got to be frustrating to be dealt that hand.

Mountain Explorer

I would tend to agree with DL's terminology rather than yours. Many times, an airline will cancel a flight. Then they rebook everyone thru other hubs, or they put those people on the next regularly-scheduled flight to that city. This is a cancellation. The flight was cancelled. The flight was not flown. Passengers took OTHER flights.

In your case that didn't happen. The flight was NOT cancelled. It was flown. Unfortunately, it was delayed until the next day. Passengers had the option of rebooking OR flying the delayed flight. This is clearly NOT a cancellation. The flight WAS flown, just with a (significant) delay.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. There is a real difference between a cancellation and a delay. Your flight was a delay. Not a cancellation

3Cforme

Those are both good reasons.

If the OP doesn't like waiting he should know - as a Diamond and a 10-year FlyerTalker - that with a significant delay, by DOT guidance and DL Contract of Carriage, he can get a refund to original form of payment - and rebook himself.

BobH

We once had a flight FNT to MSP that was 'cancelled', got rebooked and the flight ran empty much later that night to get the equipment/ crew in the right place for the next day.

Bob H

saxman66

The regional carriers do this a lot to get the completion. I think it's a ridiculous practice too as it really messes up the crew schedules as well.

rylan

My point is... why did they even bother and not just cancel? The equip and crew was going RIC-BOS-RIC. And the BOS-RIC flight was supposed to fly out last night also at 7:45pm and got 'delayed' until noon... oh and now both flights are taking another hour delay. So ~18hr delay and nobody seems to have an issue with that? There was no positioning issue, they just basically gave up for the evening. Same happened with the RIC-JFK flight... they delayed it for 2hrs at first, then said its going the next morning instead, 16hrs later.

The 'rant' is also because communication was close to non-existent. The GA vanished while we're all sitting around trying to figure out what is going on. I called up DL and they tried to get a hold of the connection carrier ops to ask also because DL didn't even know the status.

When they finally delayed the flight to the next day, BOS was already lifting any ATC delays.

BostonPlanesAndTrains

I've seen the last flight out to RIC delayed overnight almost a dozen times over the years. BOS isn't a crew base for connection carriers, so by the end of the day, delays add up.

HDQDD

How is that relevant? This wasn't a DL flight. DLC statistics are not included in DL's completion stats. And they aren't reported at all unless the carrier makes up more than 1% of the US traveling public.

HDQDD

To get the completion and/or return the aircraft/crew to its line of flight (although running that late, I don't think they'd get fully compensated by DL).

It was WX/ATC. Furthermore any crew delays were directly caused by the aforementioned. If it were a hub or a crew base they could have tried to recrew it, but it sounds like they could not.

There were multiple GS at BOS yesterday, multiple GDPs (and revisions) and at one point there was an advisory for Diversion Recoveries. There were also significant MIT (Miles in Trail) delays through the region. Welcome to flying in the summer.

Source:
http://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/adv_list....te&Other=Other

For what it's worth I worked in System Ops for a regional that flew for multiple legacy carriers. DL was by far the best at caring about passengers and pax impact. They'd actually ask what they could do to help reroute pax during IROPs. All of the others could give two doodies about pax.